I'm trying to use RHEL 6.4 for a virtual host and struggling a lot with getting Windows 2003 Server or Windows XP installed in a VM guest.

RHEL 6.4 with virtualization package installed on IBM HS22 blade.

I'm using the virt-manager GUI. I assign a Win2003 .iso file to the CD. When it boots up, the bios boots but after that I get a black screen and one cpu goes 100%. Nothing else happens inside the VM.

If I assign any other .iso like Windows 2008 server or any Linux distro it boots up fine. But any Windows 2003 .iso or CD or even WinXP CD, I get a black screen. I know the CD and .iso's are good because they bootup fine in WMWare.

I'm using virtio for both disk and network, but this doesn't make a difference.

I tried uninstalling the qemu+kvm rpm's and re-installing. No difference.

What's killing me is I had this all working fine and was rather impressed with kvm until my hard drive died on me. I replaced the hard drive and started from scratch again and now I'm getting this black screen with 100% cpu usage on one cpu on any Windows 2003 and Win XP install.

I searched around and see lots of talk on this, but it's from two years ago.

Any ideas?

I installed the same iso in VMWare Fusion on my Mac in 4 minutes. Yet the kvm install I've been struggling with for days.

Start using IDE disks attached to the KVM VM for the installation.

After the OS is installed install virtIO drives into the guest.

After the guest has virtIO driver installed, shutdown the VM, remove the IDE HDD and attached them new as virtIO devices.

I tried IDE Disk and Default for NIC (and tried rtl8139), no difference - I still get a black screen after the bios and one cpu pegged at 100%. I have the virtio-win device drivers setup on the floppy drive. I should be able to use virtio devices and hit F6 during Win2003/XP setup to use 3'rd party drivers prior to OS install, but I never get that far. I never get to setup loading the blue screen at all. Quite frustrating, unbelievably broken.

I even tried different CPU settings on the VM and tinkered with virtualization modes in the BIOS of the HS22 server. All a nogo, yet all other Linux .iso's and Windows 2008 boot the iso install image fine.

I'm going to try Fedora 19 next, because it seems to have newer qemu-kvm bundled in it.

you're using RHEL, so you should have support from Red Hat, why not call them and ask?

Well I tried it with a Fedora 19 install and it works. Even using Virtio disk & NIC devices right off the start works. This is my first time looking at Fedora 19; too bad I really dislike it ! That Gnome 3 desktop and all.

Fedora 19 has a newer qemu/kvm at 1.0.5 vs. 0.12 on RHEL 6.4. Not sure if the newer version is making the difference. I also notice that the default display setup is Spice on Fedora 19 vs. VNC on RHEL, but I tried Spice on RHEL also - nogo for Win2003 setup.

Not sure what to make of this. I'd like to get it working with RHEL.

It should be working with RHEL, call support